A Time to Pause...

Hello,

Sorry for not updating this blog recently. It has been a few weeks since I last updated, but for good reasons. Pictured above is my little time consumer, the very one that has been taking up all my time for the last few weeks. Little Natalie has graced my life with her presence and I couldn't be happier. This little bundle of joy, however, has been keeping me from the Studio and from being your inside source on all things happening.

Don't worry, work is still being made on finishing up the Studio. As of last visit, strides were being made to finish up all the different parts that still needed to be buttoned up. Decks are being installed in the video racks, the audio equipment is being fully wired and tested, and as you can see, big things have happened with the desk and monitor wall.

Below you will see that the desk has been finished and the equipment installed, including the switcher control desk. Also, you can see that the monitors have been programmed and the layouts have been saved. The beauty of the Avitech system is that these layouts can be customized to any configuration that the producer/director needs. This comes in handy when you have many different producers, directors, and even productions that happen in the same studio, allowing for a great versatility in studio equipment.

Well, when I can get back to the studio, I will update all the changes that have been made since I have been gone.

Till then...

Day 14 - Begin of Finishing work

I know it may sound like we are on the last leg of the transformation of StudioB, but there are many things that still have to be done.

Today was another day of finishing up projects that need to be completed in the control room. The firs major project was to wire up the monitor wall multiplexers. The new shipment of BNC ends came in and work was quickly underway. Before you know it, 24 new BNC cables were finished. It seems like this will truly finish the monitor wall in all its beautiful 1080p High Definition goodness... Of course, work still needs to be done to program the placement of each of the video boxes which will be done later.

Also finished today was the running of reference sync lines. In the picture below, you will see the orange video lines. These phosphorescent orange cables carry the black burst signal that will sync all the pieces of equipment to the same frequency in order for them all to work correctly. With these ran, one last major step is finished to get the system up and running. With the exception of a few loose video lines needing to be ran, the video/tape rack can now be pushed back against the wall and never touched again...Hello dust collection...

The most notable accomplishment done is the desk. After a few coats of stain and lacqure, the desktop is finished. Along with the finish being applied, the intercom stations have been installed and mounted. You may notice in the pictures below that another desk has been built and installed. This is the teleprompter station. The desk also rounds out the back wall making seem less bare than it needs to be.

And, if you thought that I was stuck in the studio without ever seeing the sun (since all my pictures are without natural sunlight), I added a nice picture of the Tennessean sun. Now I must get inside before I turn to dust ... Into the night...

Day 13 - Monitor wall greatness

Hello again.

Time to update with a great announcement...

THE MONITOR WALL IS FINISHED...mostly...

With the exception of the video lines running to the Avitech boxes, the monitor wall is finished. Today was a day of running lines, installing boxes, and zip tiering everything. To start the day off right, we had a big box arrive at our door steps from Avitech. Inside were the brand new Avitech Rainier multiviewer boxes that will be powering the two 42" LCD's. After a bit of manual reading, we decided to throw away the book and slap the boxes in as fast as we could to see the beautiful display of video (ok, so we did take our time and do it correctly...). The only thing left to finish the wall is to crimp on the final 24 BNC ends to the tie lines.

Besides the countless hours spent basking in the glory of the one truly great upgrade of the studio, many other small things were finished up today. Lines were ran for all the datacom that will be in the control room. This includes the lines for gigabit ethernet and phone lines to the desk and racks. Also, lines running from the switcher, dve, and still store were also ran to the desk for the control panels. To finish the day off right, the first coat of stain was applied to the desk top. After a few more coats of stain and more coats of lacquer, the desk will be ready for final installation.

Also pictured below is the JVC hd-250 that was put in last semester when one of the old sony cameras failed. Seeing as how they were too old to fix, a replacement was purchased. The picture shows the camera hooked up for testing the video system to make sure all the signal flow paths were working.

Well that is all for now. I now go to stare at the beautiful pictures that are being crated in the studio, and its only the monitor wall. Wait till fall programming starts...

Rebuild, Mini Update...

Hello again.

I thought I would give a mini update for those of you who check this daily. One new development happened today that is pretty exciting and a signal to the end of the rebuild.

We Have Fiber!!

No, we haven't been chowing down on bran muffins. Today was the first day that Studio B has broadcasted video in over three months. Shown in the picture above is the two fiber converter boxes that connect up to Mass Comm and our master control. Using two fiber optic links, we transmit two video lines and a stereo audio line over 500 ft to the Mass Comm building into our master control room where we hook into the Comcast uplink. Though, we did not actually broadcast anything to the outside world, there was video that was sent to the master control station. We currently only have video running to the converter boxes at the moment, so there will not be any programming being played out from the studio yet, but hopefully soon the station will be fully operational again.

Check back for more updates, including the arrival of some very cool pieces of equipment...

Day 12 - Monitor wall, take 2

Hello all

Surprise, I am throwing in a bonus post since my posting schedule has apparently moved to a once a week posting. However, I could not just keep this one to myself till next week.

If you hadn't noticed, we have the monitor wall finished again (it went quicker this time for some reason ;-) ). Pictured above are the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that are the core of the monitor wall. As I stated before, these will hold 24 video inputs that can be configured in any way possible. The desktop has been put in for layout and final adjustment, though it has not been attached to the supports yet. In the picture to the right, you can see that we have added the wood for the intercom station. It will be built into the desktop and have a 45 degree tilt to it.Though it may seem like there is little room left for the director, there is actually quite a bit of room in front of the station, the same if not more than what it was previously with the old desk. Also you have the space on top of the station that can also be used as desktop space.

To the right of the monitors, you can see the opening for the GVG 200 switcher control surface. The rest of the layout will include space for the DVE and still store controls to the right of the switcher, Director and Producer spaces in front of the monitors, and space for the CG operator to the left of the monitors.

Well, hopefully that can sustain everyone's appetite until next week...

Day 11 - More Audio

Hello again,

It looks like I am moving towards a one day a week posting schedule. The problem is that with audio cables, so much work is put into running one line that the entire process takes a good amount of time.

Speaking of the process, I guess I should go through that for anyone who would like to know. Unlike video cables, which only require a BNC end to be crimped onto the cable, audio cables require much more intensive work to be done. Starting at the patch panels, each line must be stripped, heat shrink tubing added, dressed with zip ties, and punched down. This is required in order to make a clean looking rack, of course. As you can see in the pictures below, the outcome is very clean looking. Then to the DA side of things, each line going to and coming from the audio DAs must be attached to small screw terminals. These require tedious and tiering work to be done to attach all the leads. And on the device side of things, each cable end must be soldered onto the cable. Most of the time, each connector requires two or three leads to be soldered. On top of all this, you must multiply every stereo line by two in order to run the left and right channels. As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done...

At this point, a majority of line coming into the audio patch panels have been run. All the inputs to and from the tape decks, router, audio board, and studio patch panels have been ran and punched-down at the patch panels. Whats left is running outputs from the audio DAs to the patch panels, running lines to and from each of the processing boxes, and COMM lines. Studio patch panel 1 (located behind the studio door) has been completed along with a coat of black paint to allow it to blend in better than the beige color it was previously. Work began on Studio panel 2 (located behind the set on the opposite wall from panel 1) by drilling the holes for the panel connectors and also giving it a coat of black paint.

Also, an exciting event happened for us as well. We two of the four components of the new monitor wall. As you can see in the pics below, we received the two 47" Philips LCD HDTVs that will be the main visible component of the monitor wall. On these two monitors, 24 video displays will be multiplexed using two Avitech 12 input boxes. Those will be coming within the next few weeks.

And one more side note...As always, here at MTTV, we strive to keep true to our roots. As any past member can tell you, we love using antiquated technology (considering we had a 3/4" tape deck and a Cart player still). As you can see below, the VHS deck has been wired and is fully operational.

Till next time...

Day 10 - Audio

And again, a fond hello...

I'm back with more of the info concerning the Studio B renovation at MTTV. If you are just joining us, you can get all the information starting with day 1 Here. Also, you can find out more about MTTV, Middle Tennessee State University's Student Run Television Station, at our website at www.mtsutv.org.

On to the studio...

Over the last couple of days (I know, I haven't updated in a while) we have been working on the audio system for the studio. Begging with the audio racks. As you can see in the pictures below, we have placed all the equipment in the two racks that we are able to at this time. Not shown are a few more pieces of equipment needed to be pulled over from Mass Comm and the much needed new camera CCU's (those will come later summer).

With the equipment layout finally locked in and the cable codes rewritten, we began work on installing all the cable for the audio racks. To save cable and reuse what we already had, we decided to use lengths of the old multi-cable snakes that once connected the old Studio C Audio room with the many patch bays in the old studio (recently replaced with lightweight AES connections that run 2 channels over one line). Using this 24 pair multi-cable, work started on cutting, stripping, soldering, and zip tie-ing. In one of the photos below, you will notice the very specialized piece of equipment we use. Its a board with nails in it. Mock it all you want, but this little baby allows the precise measurement and layout of all the patch panel punch strips, allowing us to have a neat and clean rack layout. (See photo below)

In addition to building the cable for all the audio system, work began on the outside patch panels in the studio that will hold all the jacks for the mic, returns, comm, IFB, and video tie lines. Below there are pictures depicting the layout of the two panels as well as the begging stages of laying out the jacks.

Also, you can see that work has also been done on sorting and removing all the old tie lines that ran throughout the studio as well as between the MTTV office and the studio. Most of the office ties will stay, but many unused cables will be removed.

In total there will be a completely different system of tie lines available for people to use in the studio. The biggest change, of course is the 16 microphone inputs that will be available to groups to use, allowing anyone to easily produce a show that includes a full band layout. Included with those will be 4 general returns, 4 IFB lines, 4 Comm lines, and 4 general video tie lines, allowing many possible configurations of interconnects needed to produce a show. Can't you feel the excitement...

Well till next time....

P.S. We also painted the desk supports, pretty blue...

Day 9 - Monitor wall, take 2

Ok, so we might have been a little bit early in building the monitor wall. If you haven't guessed from the picture, the glass monitor wall and rack cages have been completely dismantled and removed. This is to make way for a new state of the art monitor wall system that utilizes a multiplexing video processor and two 42" LCD HDTVs. A fancy way of saying, it will look "binging"...

To those of you who had not heard earlier, the original design for the rebuild included the new monitor wall system with LCDs and all. However, due to some funding cuts (thank the legislation of Tennessee cutting higher education costs) we had to kill that idea and go with an all glass situation that took advantage of the current monitors left over from the StudioC renovation and StudioB renovation. The good news is that thanks to a lot of number crunching, the Mass Communications Department was able to produce enough money to fund the last bit of this project.

Of course, that means more work for us...

Today started - after a refreshing break for Memorial Day - by removing the old glass monitors and old rack units. This took less time (no surprise) than installing. Biggest problem, pulling 24 50ft cables back through the ceiling. After removing the old equipment, new construction started. With the new monitor solution came a new layout of the control room. Those of you who are familiar with Television Production Truck layouts might recognize the layout we are going for. To maximize the space we have, the layout of one long desk was chosen. This will be the desk for the TD, Director, Producer, and CG operator. Space could be used for an AD as well, but it is reconfigurable for any type of situation. This allows everyone to be on the same plane and allows for better access to all parts of the control room (very handicap accessible). As you can see in the photo's below, we are building the desk that will run along the main wall. Above this desk will hang the two 42" LCD HDTVs, which will display 24 different video inputs in any configuration needed (I love digital video technology...).

Also, over the last few days (while waiting on confirmation of the new monitor wall) we began work on the audio rack units. In the picture below, you can see the two racks placed and we have even installed the rails that will hold the desktop. On this desktop will rest the audio console. The layout of the two racks have changed due to some space miscalcualations, but the they will still hold the audio gear and QC area (Quality Control or camera control, for those non tv-tech geeks). Shown are the two audio DAs and the six audio patch panels that will allow us to move any input to any output.

And last but not least, we had to do something to take care of the lighting dimmer pack. Before the renovation, the very large and heavy dimmer pack rested on top the engineer racks in the "back" of the old control room (now the front). Since those racks are no longer in their place, we had to find a new solution for mounting the dimmer pack so that the electrical pigtails (shown hanging down in the corner) could reach it as well as all the fan outlets and various other things. Finding what seems to be the original mounting solution, we decided why reinvent the wheel. Using four threaded rods, a few washers and a lot of nuts, the dimmer pack will be suspended from the ceiling. The last photo shows the plywood base that the pack will sit on that is held up by the four rods.

Well, until later...

Rebuild - Day 8, Monitor wall cont.

Just a quick update.

Today was more work with the monitor wall. Placed and replaced almost all the monitors in the rest of the racks. I say replacing because of the numerous times we had to pull monitors to reposition them in the rack. This was due to some miscalculations in spacing and random space dimensions that some of the monitor rack mounts. Apparently sony 12" monitors have a rack mount that takes up a half of a rack space, go figure...

Anyways, all but two 9" monitors are placed. As you can see, its kind of a mess at the moment. By the end of the rebuild, blank panels will cover most of the spaces in between the monitors and hopefully tidy up the racks.

Rebuild - Day 7, Monitor Wall

Hello again,

I know I had said that we were finished with our video wiring, but I guess I was wrong.

Today began another important part of the rebuild process, the monitor wall. Without this wall of glass and electronics, we would not be able to do the very simple act of making television. Of course this step in rebuilding the studio is one a great importance.

We started off with transporting the racks needed for the monitor wall from over in Mass Comm to our studio. The wall requires four racks side by side to hold all the monitors needed. In total, there will be 24 monitors that adorn this rack for all the equipment/inputs that we will have. In order to feed all these monitors, cables had to be made to run all the way to the other side of the room. To keep things nice and neat, a cable route of going up and over the lighting grid outside of the control room was chosen. This resulted in the making of 24 50-ft cables. As you can imagine, dealing with this much cable is not a very easy task....

Hopefully, by tomorrow afternoon, we will have the rest of the monitors in place and will begin on building the desk for director and TD. More updates then...

Rebuild - Day 6, end of video, for now...

Well, today marked the end of Video cable making for now. Dustin and I were able to finish the remaining jumper cables needed to run from the DA's to the patch panels. The only cables left are ones that will have to wait till other racks of equipment are set up.

For Monday, that means that we will start on the next phase of the rebuild, audio. Starting Monday, we will begin by moving racks and equipment over to the studio for the audio and QC Racks. Unfortunately, this also means we will start making audio cables to run in the racks. This means soldering like we have never soldered before.

Till next week...

Rebuild - Day 5, even more wires...

Wires, wires, everywhere....

Yes, another day full of wiring up video equipment. Today, we were able to finish up outputs from the DA racks to the patch panel as well as video lines running to and from the still store and dve racks. Also finished today was the key channel lines ran. Of course, much math was involved along with time spent on google to find out what the specific delay of a bts-3000a DA card was. Not quite sure what the answer to that one was.

Hopefully, tomorrow will herald the end of video cable making. Left to be done are the reference signal cables that will run to all the equipment and one and a half patch panel lines need to be run from the DA's. This will conclude the majority of the video lines needing to be ran.

After all the video lines, there is still a major list of things still needing to be done.

• Build Audio/QC racks
• Run Audio Cable
• Build Monitor wall racks
• Run video lines to Monitor wall (another 25 or so lines, yippee)
• Build Desks and floor for TD, Director and Producer
• Run Camera Mults
• Build Cameras
• Run Studio and Office tie lines

The list is almost endless at this point. If anyone would like to start a finish date pool, let me know. It will go next to the News Baby pool hanging in the office...

And by the way, a splinter from the metal braid of a Belden 1505a coax cable seems to be one of the worst finger injuries I have encountered...

Rebuild - Day 4, More Wiring...

Hello,

Nothing much to talk about today. Continuing on from yesterday's work, Dustin and I set out to make even more cables. After 250 to 300 cable crimps, we are both hoping there is an end in sight for the BNC cables...

We did, however, get the equipment rack that houses the DVE, Still Store, and switcher rack units up and mounted. This rack sits on top of the control room, above where the engineering racks are below. This rack was moved up there to cut down on audio levels in the control room as well as save rack space.

And, I can't forget, we finally mounted the VHS deck into the tape-op racks.

Tomorrow will most likely be another day full of wiring. Pray for our hands.

Rebuild - Day 3, Wiring!!!

Well, this is the point where the weak never survive, wiring. Even the most seasoned engineer will shudder with the thought of wiring. The endless crimping, soldering, measuring, fitting, all with very messy and inherently disorganized wires. However, with the help of experienced engineers (such as Mark and Toffer), wrangling these electronic serpents were easy. So grab your flutes and get ready to deal with a cobra.

Each component of the rack, other racks, cameras, even outside sources and monitors, each need a cable to connect that piece to the system. Over a few thousand cables can make up a video system. This includes cables from cameras, to patch panels, to Distribution amplifiers, to monitors, to the switcher, to another monitor, to video decks...you get the picture. Each one of those cables will need to be measured, cut, and fitted with BNC ends for video and RCA/XLR ends for audio. As you can see, we have our work cut out for us.

As you can see in the pictures below, planning makes all the difference. This studio upgrade began months ago as an idea and an Excel Spreadsheet. Pictured is the equipment layout for all the racks that will be in the studio, as well as the layout diagram for the video patch panels. Each wire to and from components have already been planned out and labeled accordingly. Because of this, each wire is already thought out and all that needs to be done is cut, labeled, and put into place. It is apparent that Mark and Toffer had done this before - upgrading StudioC to a High Definition multicamera studio.

With a start on the wire-making done, we end the day finishing off the inputs and outputs to the new 8x8 video/audio router that will feed all the video decks for recording routing.

Rebuild - Day 2, Rack Placement

Hello again,

Sorry for being late on this post. I forgot my camera yesterday and wasn't able to grab any 'good' pictures till this morning.

Rebuild - Day 2, Equipment

Today began the most exciting part of the buildup. The placement of equipment in racks! At least now it's starting to look like a studio control room again. We started out the day finishing the paint on the second half of the floor. This is a big event since the floor has not been the same color since the control room was originally built back in the early 80's. If anyone could shed some light on the history of this control room, I would love to hear it. Send me an email to cpayne@mtsutv.org and I will post it up here.

Well after the paint dried, we started working on the new tape-op racks. These, of course, were re-purposed from the old engineering racks from the studio. Three racks will hold two DVCAM decks, two BetaSX decks, and two MacOSX DDR playback computers. Along with these, the racks will hold various pieces of equipment, such as BTS video DA's, video patch panels, Compix CG machine, and signal generator. As you can see in the photo below, we also included a nice desk built into the actual rack for tap-op use.

Also, we brought over another rack from StudioC from their rebuild. This went up on top of the control room and will house the GVG 200-M switcher rack mainframe, and the Abekas 2 channel DVE and Still Store.

Thats all for now, tonight I will have another update from today.

Two days, one post....

Hello all,

Sorry about the long time before posting, I had a busy weekend and haven't been able to post updates. Coupled with not working Friday or Monday, you get the picture.

Tear Out - Day 2 (Tuesday)

All is going well, we have removed all the flooring as well as floor joists and cleaned the walls down to the bear concrete block and drywall. The hardest part was cutting up the floor joists that the original builders had built a wall upon. You can see in the sideshow where the outside wall is "floating". This is because we had to cut the joists out from underneath it. To keep the wall from falling, we had to brace it up, of course. Using wood from the old joists, we built supports and then faced it with two more long joists. After pulling all the flooring out, we also had to break down the wood from the monitor wall and the flooring to fit in the dumpster.

From deconstruction, we moved onto reorganizing the roof of the control room. We had to move the equipment that was stored up there along with the metal storage racks out so we could prep the area for the equipment rack that will house the GVG 200-m rack unit and power supply as well as the Abekas DVE and other loud equipment. We will have to work on quieting these for use in the studio of course. More on that later...



Rebuild, Day 1 - Paint (Wednesday)

After gutting the old control room, we moved onto workin on the look for the new studio control room. The obvious first step was a nice new coat of paint...or coats...

I'm not going to boar you with the obvious steps of painting. We spent a bit of time cleaning up the rest of the junk (mostly sawdust) and patching holes. After a few coats of light blue/grey on the walls and a slightly off-white color for the trim, the new control room is looking very nice. The new paint for the floor also cleans up all the old stains and scratches that were present in the old floor. The old off-white color would look familiar to any older MTTV manager who were here before the great floor repaint a few years back...

And one sad note. There were two great shout-outs that were left by now MTSU alumni. These were on the trim of the big studio window next to where the producer's desk used to be on the top of the window. Unfortunately, these were painted over and lost. If anyone knows who left them, please let me know.




Well, thats all for now. Hopefully, I will be able to get on a regular schedule now.

Tear out, Day 1

After the first day of tear out, we have come to a conclusion...

...this joint is friggin dusty!

Seriously, I wonder if I will die of some lung disease because of it...

We have made great progress in the demolition of the old studio control room. As you can see in the photos, we have removed the equipment, wiring, old monitor wall, and even the directors floor and desks. Next we will begin work on removing the old equipement racks as well as the floor that they sit on. Hopefully by the end of it, the floor will be rebuilt with a lower height for safety sake. More on that later...

Studio Pics - PreTearOut...

Posted some pictures of the studio before it was torn out...

A Brand New Start....

Hello all you wonderful people....

Well, with the end of finals at Middle Tennessee State University comes the signal of the death of Channel 10...

...or at least the studio that we all came to love, hate, and...enjoy?

Yes, the end of the old studio B as we knew it is here. At the begging of Summer 2008, StudioB in the LRC is being completely gutted and redone with "newer" equipment. This brings much joy to the members of MTTV Channel 10 who have to deal with old equipment that had seen better days, day in and day out. No more broken routers, no more DA's going out, no more funky colored monitors...in comes....better stuff from the same time period....

In all seriousness, the "upgrade" will be a much needed upgrade to our current studio. We have all about grown out of the 20 year old studio and greatly appreciate the effort and time that Mark Parrish and Toffer King put in on this project.

If you are wondering who I am, I am the student worker who will be bringing you all the juicy play by plays of the tear out, remodeling, and re-installation of the "state of the art" facility that will be the new home for MTTV Channel 10.

Stay tuned to this blog for more details and upcoming pictures of the tear out....